Mariyani Zaenal and Violin share a special bond in Dolly, the sex capital of Indonesia. Photo: Ilana Rose

VIOLIN'S favourite thing is going to church, and her very favourite Bible story is the one about the lamb that gets separated from the flock.

For this 10-year-old girl, fatherless, all but abandoned by her some-time prostitute mother and living in the neon glow of Indonesia's sex capital, Surabaya, the story of the shepherd who goes out of his way to rescue the lost sheep must carry enormous comfort.

Violin's shepherd is Mariyani Zaenal, a volunteer at a local crisis centre. They are an incongruous pair, Mariyani, a jilbab-wearing Muslim, and Violin, a Christian girl, but they have a powerful bond.

Mariyani helps about 10 children like Violin, but it's clear that Violin is special. Mariyani says she ''has a call'' to protect her. ''She's a sweet girl. It's too bad that she has to deal with this background,'' she says.

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Surabaya's pink-lit Dolly district is famous across Indonesia for its arrays of young women waiting on tiered sofas and available from 80,000 rupiah ($8.30) an hour.

But behind the glittering facade, the brutal economics of poverty are hard at work.

Mariyani and other staff at the city's World Vision-funded crisis centre say some of the prostitutes are local girls, raised in Dolly's highly sexualised environment and attracted by the trappings of relative wealth.

But most are from poor nearby villages. Some are sold into the industry by parents desperate for the money.

''They are perhaps 13 to 14 years old, because that's when children are costing their parents the most,'' Mariyani says. ''It's illegal, but still there are many cases like that.''

Others have been child brides, married off at 15, who have then somehow found their way to Dolly.

Still others are ''recruited'' by charming middlemen who trawl the local villages seducing young women, then coercing them to work for money.

The industry affects boys here, too, says crisis centre worker Monica Sri Sunarti, from the 15-year-old motorcycle taxi drivers who are paid in sex, to the boys of 13 and 14 who save up their cash for an hour with a woman in the window.

Once a sex worker takes her place, leaving is difficult. A prostitute's earnings, 40 per cent of each transaction, exceed what they could get through any other unskilled labour, and their pimps (who take the other 60 per cent) often bind them by lending money for consumer goods at an interest rate of 10 per cent a month.

Once these women are 30 or 35, though, they are too old for the premium strip, and they are forced out to one of Surabaya's lower-priced red-light districts. By the time they are 40 they may be turning tricks on the gravestones at the nearby cemetery.

Dolly was established during the Dutch colonial era to entertain the sailors arriving at Surabaya harbour.

Prostitution is not illegal in Muslim-majority Indonesia. But local authorities are trying to close Dolly down, even though there's a fight between the mayor and the regional governor about how quickly this should be done.

Sri Sunarti says 58 women this year have taken the local government's 3 million rupiah ($320) incentive to get out of the industry. Of 500 participants in the program, though, the rest have elected to stay on the job. At the crisis centre they fear that closing the industry will send it underground, increasing the danger of disease and violence.

In the midst of all this, Violin has lived with her great-aunt Juliana (her grandmother's sister) since she can remember, with sporadic visits from her mother. On one visit three years ago, Violin's mother introduced a little sister, Anneke. But she seems remarkably unaffected. She is quiet, studious and wants to be a doctor so she can ''help sick people''.

''I'm not sad when I remember my mother,'' Violin says. ''My mother has a plan to visit me next year, but I'm not sure yet if she will come.''

Great-aunt Juliana is concerned, though. ''Sometimes I am a little bit worried that drunk people will do something bad to Anneke and Violin.''

But Mariyani says nothing will happen to the girls on her watch. ''If this child can succeed, then others in the same situation can also succeed.''